Universal’s newest theme park, opened in May 2025 and the biggest they’ve built in decades — around $7 billion to put together and already being called the most ambitious park they’ve ever done. It splits into five themed worlds: a Super Nintendo world, a Paris-set Harry Potter wizarding quarter, Celestial Park with its Starfall Racers coaster, a How to Train Your Dragon valley, and the moody Dark Universe built around the classic Universal monsters.

For the Welcome Reception the gates close to the public and the park opens for NADA attendees only — food, drink and the run of the rides and bars for the full four hours. It’s an event that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the week, and is the main reason it sells out early.

One of the largest private car collections in the world, sitting inside the Dezerland Park entertainment complex on International Drive. Over two thousand vehicles across themed rooms: a James Bond hall with Aston Martins and Lotuses from across the films, a Back to the Future room with the DeLorean, a Ghostbusters set with Ecto-1, a Batman section with Burton-era Batmobiles, pre-war classics, Italian supercars, American muscle and Hollywood pieces in between.

The 007 Kitchen is a working restaurant that sits inside the museum itself: your dinner is served in the Bond collection, with the rest of the museum open to walk through before and after. For a NADA group it’s the dinner of the week.

The wetlands south of Orlando are protected, shallow, and full of wildlife — alligators, bald eagles, herons, otters and turtles. Normal boats can’t cross them because the water is too shallow and clogged with plants, so airboats are used instead: flat-bottomed craft driven by an aircraft-style propeller on the stern, skimming the surface at speed. It’s as Florida as it gets.

The sunset run takes you out across open water as the light drops and the colours in the sky start showing — the time of day when the wildlife is most active and the photos are the best you’ll take all week. About an hour on the water, then a short drive to dinner.

NASA’s launch headquarters on Florida’s Space Coast, around an hour up the coast from Orlando. Every Apollo mission launched from here, every Space Shuttle, and SpaceX, Boeing and Blue Origin still fly from the surrounding pads today — rockets go up most weeks and you might catch one.

Inside the visitor complex: the real Space Shuttle Atlantis suspended as if in flight in a purpose-built hall, a full Saturn V rocket lying on its side (it’s the length of a football pitch), the original Apollo mission control desks preserved exactly as they were, and a bus tour that takes you out past the active launch pads themselves. You could spend two days there and still not see it all.

NASCAR’s biggest race of the year — the one every American stock-car driver wants on their CV, held every February at the start of the season. Known as the Great American Race: the Daytona International Speedway grandstands hold over 100,000 people, the track is a 2.5-mile oval of banked asphalt, and forty cars race flat out at close to 200mph for just over three hours.

Think Super Bowl with cars. Military flyovers, a 40-car driver parade, the national anthem, celebrities on the grid, and a crowd that treats the week as a pilgrimage. Our seats are in the main grandstand with a clear view of the start-finish line; the build-up, the start and the opening laps are where the atmosphere peaks.